Teach the Teacher, or Fail the Child

The repeated assertion by Education Minister ANM Ehsanul Haque Milon that the era of institutionalised cheating in public examinations is over has been met with a cautious sigh of relief.

His commitment to transforming the Ministry of Education into an “Ebadatkhana” (a place of worship) and his vow to dismantle the “two-pen culture” (where teachers allegedly used red and black ink to facilitate malpractice) is a necessary moral cleansing of our academic halls.

Yet, as any seasoned journalist or academic will attest, stopping leakage in exam papers or installing CCTV cameras in halls is merely a cosmetic cure for a much deeper malignancy. While integrity in assessment is vital, it is a secondary fruit of a healthy tree.

The root of quality education is not the surveillance camera, but the person standing at the chalkboard. Without quality teachers, there is no quality education.

To dream of a “New Bangladesh” while our classrooms remain staffed by those lacking the basic pedagogical or subject-matter competence is to build a skyscraper on shifting sands.

The reality of our educational landscape was laid bare in the recent UNESCO Global Education Statistics. The report provides a harrowing “post-mortem” of our teaching standards: Bangladesh languishes at the very bottom of South Asia regarding the proportion of teachers possessing minimum qualifications.

With only 55% of secondary teachers meeting the UNESCO benchmark – calculated based on appropriate academic credentials and pedagogical training – we are in a state of pedagogical bankruptcy. When contrasted with the Maldives’ 98.5% or Bhutan’s 97.9%, the disparity is not just a gap; it is a chasm. Even more alarming is the granular data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS). In our secondary schools, nearly a quarter of English teachers have not studied the subject beyond higher secondary level. In Mathematics, a staggering 56% of teachers effectively stopped learning the subject after the age of 18. We are currently witnessing a “blind leading the blind” scenario where a teacher of Religion or Arts is often tasked with explaining the complexities of Algebra or the nuances of English grammar simply because a “subject-specific” vacancy exists.

How did we arrive at this nadir? Much of the blame lies with the archaic and often corrupt recruitment processes that preceded the Non-Government Teachers’ Registration and Certification Authority (NTRCA) era. For decades, school and college managing committees held absolute power over appointments. In rural areas, particularly within MPO-listed institutions, these committees became hubs of bribery, nepotism and political patronage. Jobs were frequently “sold” for money or awarded to local loyalists, regardless of their academic merit or passion for teaching.

This culture of patronage was further compounded by a skewed primary recruitment policy that, for years, reserved 80% of assistant teacher posts for specific quotas, leaving a mere 20% window for general merit to seep through. This created a legacy of “incumbent incompetence”— a generation of teachers who entered the profession through the back door and have since lacked the motivation or the pressure to upskill. The current crisis is the harvest of those seeds of irregularities.

If the government is serious about “nation-building through the hands of teachers”, we must move beyond rhetoric and implement a rigorous, perhaps even ruthless, framework for quality assurance. We must establish national minimum benchmarks for teaching competency. It should no longer be assumed that a degree obtained twenty years ago guarantees classroom effectiveness today. Every teacher, regardless of tenure, should undergo a mandatory “Professional Competency Test” every three years. This test should evaluate both subject-matter depth and modern “teaching-learning” methodologies.

For those who fail to meet the benchmark, the state should provide a safety net in the form of a one-year intensive training programme. This should not be the typical “day-long workshop” that serves as a social gathering for teachers, but a rigorous and subject-specific residency. Education is a public trust, not a social welfare scheme for the unemployable. If a teacher fails to meet the minimum criteria even after participating in regular training and the one-year “redemption” period – spanning a total window of, say, two years – there must be consequences. In the initial phase, a teacher failing to meet benchmarks should face suspension or a significant reduction in MPO benefits or salary for one to two years. During this time, they must complete compulsory retraining to improve their skills.

Should these interventions fail, the government must show the political will to institute necessary legal reforms in service rules, allowing for the ultimate removal of chronically underperforming staff from the payroll. There should be no room for compromise. A weak teacher does not only fail in their own role; they risk harming the learning of entire generations of students.

The scarcity of skilled educators is most acute in the rural hinterlands. While the ministry’s recent move to create a “Retired Teacher Pool” to bridge current vacancies is a pragmatic short-term fix, it is not a sustainable strategy. We must incentivise top-tier talent to move to rural government primary and MPO-listed schools through higher “Rural Postings” allowances and accelerated career progression.

Furthermore, the teacher recruitment process needs a total overhaul. The NTRCA must be strengthened to ensure that only the “crème de la crème” enter the system. We need to move toward a “Pre-Service” training model, similar to developed nations, where an individual must complete a professional teaching license before they are even eligible to apply for a post.

Minister Milon is correct: teachers are the architects of tomorrow’s Bangladesh. But an architect without a blueprint, or the skill to read one, is a danger to the structure. The UNESCO report is our wake-up call. We must purge the system of the ghost of the “Managing Committee” era and replace it with a culture of constant evaluation and accountability. Cleaning up the examination halls is a start, but the real “Ebadat” lies in ensuring that when the CCTV cameras are turned off and the classroom door is closed, the person standing in front of our children is actually capable of teaching them.